With a hectic schedule and never-ending to do list, making a healthy homemade breakfast is a tall order most mornings! Set yourself up for a successful and healthy week by preparing your breakfast the night (or several nights) before. Then keep them fresh throughout the week in a stasher bag. These meal prep recipes will help you minimize plastic (bye, granola bar wrappers and yogurt cups) and lead a less stressful daily routine.

Banana Pancakes

Whip up a huge batch of these healthy, naturally sweet banana pancakes on the weekend, and eat them throughout the week!

Mash the banana thoroughly and mix with the egg until well combined. Mix in oats and protein powder, let sit for 2 minutes. Heat coconut oil in a skillet and cook pancakes (makes 2-3) until lightly browned.

Double, triple, or quadruple the recipe to prepare multiple breakfasts. Get imaginative with your toppings- these pancakes can be heated up (did you know you can microwave food in your stasher bags?) and dunked in syrup, smeared with peanut butter for an extra helping of protein, or simply served plain with a side of fruit.

Cinnamon French Toast

Add a little sweetener to your French toast to make French toast sticks that are easy to grab as you’re running out the door in the morning- no messy syrup or powdered sugar required!

Ingredients:

2 slices of bread

1/4 cup milk

1 egg

1 teaspoon honey

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions:

Beat egg, and mix well with additional ingredients. Dip bread in egg mixture, covering both sides. Heat butter or coconut oil in a skillet and cook egg-coated bread slices on medium low heat until browned on both sides (the lower the heat, the fluffier the toast!).

Double, triple, or quadruple the recipe to prepare multiple breakfasts. Serve with fruit- a sweet, ripe mango is our favorite!

The Protein Pack

Those bistro boxes that you can grab at coffee shops may be healthy, but they’re also expensive and packaged in lots of single-use plastic. Save money and make your own healthy morning burst of power.

Ingredients:

2 hard boiled eggs

2 oz cheese

½ gala apple

1 ½ Tb peanut butter

A handful of almonds

Instructions:

This meal can be customized in so many different ways! Swap the apples for grapes or melon, include a English muffin instead of the eggs, thow in walnuts or pecans instead of the almonds.

(If you’re packing multiple breakfasts ahead of time, squeeze lemon on the apples, and keep the cheese and almonds in a separate snack-sized stasher in the refrigerator).

Meal Prep Tips:

Meal prep can be a bit tedious, but the time you spend on it definitely pays off throughout the week as you save money, stick to a healthy diet, and cut down on waste. Here are a few tips to make meal prep fun and simple!

Make your meal prep time count by using the time you spend chopping, cooking, and portioning to catch up with a friend (use a headset or speaker phone), listen to a podcast or book you’ve been wanting to read, or even unwind by putting on Netflix or listening to music.

Look at your meal plan and try to figure out the most efficient way to prep your ingredients. If you’ll be using carrots in two different recipes, plus stocking up on raw carrot sticks, wash and slice all of the carrots you’ll need at once.

Use a dry erase marker to date your stored food, or to note the day of the week you’re planning to enjoy the food inside so that you’ll easily know which stasher to grab and throw in your lunch bag. The ink will easily wash off your stasher bag, again and again.

this post was written by our friend Hannah Theisen, editor oflife+style+justice, founder of a beautiful refuge and a member of the ethical blogger network. connect with Hannah oninstagram.

We’ve heard your requests for a bigger bag and now finally the half-gallon stasher is here! Because, hey— size matters. This gargantuan cooking and storage bag was born to sous vide, cleans like a dream, and prevents all kinds of plastic waste. You’ll really fall in love when you see just how much it holds.

Sure, plastic is convenient and easy to use, but there’s no question that it’s toxic to the environment and our bodies. Every day, 20 million plastic bags go to landfill in the u.S and it takes over 500 years for each of those bags to break down. There is a solution in stasher, the world’s first and only plastic-free storage bag, which is made out of pure platinum, food grade silicone.

Plastic that doesn’t end up in a landfill often ends up in the ocean and enters the food chain which is a big concern for human health. The harsh chemicals and toxins found in plastic can lead to cancer, infertility, immune disorders and more.

Fortunately, you now have a healthier option: food grade silicone is a more flexible, sustainable, and safer alternative to plastic, so it’s safe for people and the planet. Unique by design, stasher is engineered to get people to rethink the plastic in their lives. No other silicone bag delivers airtight performance and self-sealing convenience.

What is food grade silicone?

Food grade silicone is a non-toxic type of silicone that doesn’t contain any chemical fillers or byproducts, making it safe for use with food. Silicon, the naturally occurring chemical element that makes up silicone, is a metalloid, which means it has properties of both metals and non-metals and is the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust, after oxygen.

The silicone molecule is comprised of silicon, oxygen and quartz, a durable, hard, inflexible “rock”, which is the most common component of sand. Due to its resiliency, non-porous surface and sustainability, food grade silicone is essentially soft glass. While mason jars and other glass containers are great for plastic-free storage, they can break, take up a lot of space, and are inconvenient for taking on the go. Stasher makes it easy to store your food at home or on-the-go while keeping what you’re eating away from plastic.

Benefits of food grade silicone:

Highly resistant to damage and degradation from extreme temperatures

Resistant to rain, sleet, snow, and the sun’s uv rays

Doesn’t harden, crack, peel, crumble, dry out, rot or become brittle over time

Stasher is made of pure platinum silicone, so it’s a healthy alternative that’s safe for people and the planet. Overtime, plastic bags and containers leak harsh chemicals and toxins into your food, which ultimately end up in your body. With stasher you get all of the ease and convenience of plastic without any of the consequences.

So let’s get cooking! Here are all the ways you can cook with stasher:

Marinate

photo: food52.com

Marinate in stasher to add flavor to your meat, fish, or vegetables without having to worry about leaks and spills.

Sous Vide

photo: food52.com

Sous vide is a method of cooking in which food is sealed in airtight bags then placed in water for longer than normal cooking times (usually 1 to 6 hours) at a regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture. Traditionally, food is cooked in plastic when using the sous vide method. But when plastic is heated it accelerates the release of harmful chemicals that leech into your food. Instead, use our entirely plastic-free stasher bags that are made from food-safe, 100% pure platinum silicone.

Steam

Steam fresh or frozen veggies by placing them in stasher with olive oil and any herbs and spices. then place the bag in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Open carefully and enjoy! Using this method, you won’t lose any of the nutrients in the water and you won’t have to worry about your veggies tasting like plastic.

Microwave

to reheat or steam fresh or frozen food in the microwave, simply leave your stasher bag open and handle with caution.

store

make meal prep easy and store meal portions in the fridge or freezer for future use or a quick and easy home-cooked meal. store a homemade pasta sauce made from summer tomatoes for a winter meal, or create your own healthy frozen dinner. stasher protects food from freezer burn and helps seal in freshness.

clean

when you’re finished cooking, stasher can go straight into the dishwasher, making cleanup a breeze!